TCKH Aegil Éarendel
by Ulfhedhin
Summary: Exiled from his homeland, bereaved of his inheritance. Aegil has sworn revenge on his father's killers, but his journey for vengeance is long and goes through a foreign war and the ressurection of a knightly order; The Order of the Knights of Hogwarts.


**_Scandinavia  
Midwinter, 1987_**

_ The houses blazed as though the fires of hell itself had erupted from the earth to engulf them.  
Moans and screams, curses and clangour of blades were heard in a night as bright as dawn.  
"Father!" The thin sound of a child's voice could barely be heard in the raging battle. "Father, where are you!?"  
A red blast hit the ground to the left of him stopping him in his tracks, spraying earth and snow over the eight year old boy. A scream, shrill in the night sky got him moving again. Running between the smithy and a storehouse, ducking as the former collapsed and sent a cloud of soot and embers flying through the air.  
Rubbing soot from his eyes, the boy turned a corner just in time to see a man clad in plated maille draw a sword from the chest of a large man, clad in nothing but trousers and an undershirt. As the large man fell, his body turned towards the boy and recognition dawned on his sad face. Tears formed in the boys eyes, cleansing the remnants of soot away as he watched the life drain from the man. A new scream tore through the night, shriller and more terrifying...  
"Aegil."  
...The blazing inferno unable to keep the icy chill of winter at bay no more...  
"Aegil, wake up!"  
...The woman's scream silenced... Another voice taking it up...  
_"AEGIL!"

He sat bolt upright in the bed, his right hand holding a knife ready to strike, his left searching for his wand.  
"Calm down, friend" the familiar, soothing voice said. "It was just a dream."  
Aegil looked over at his friend. His long soot-coloured hair framed by the scarlet curtains of the four poster bed. The scream still lingering in his head.  
"No. No it wasn't."

* * *

**Chapter 1.**  
**A Northman in Britain.**

The clacking sound of wood hitting wood echoed off the walls in the empty classroom. The training swords moving as fast as the youths could swing them. Each acting and then reacting to every blow the opponent struck. Aegil found the physical effort to be a welcome diversion from the very academic day-to-day activities of the castle. There also were the traditional and practical uses for the training, not to mention his main motive.

Szilárd stepped up his pace, the Hungarian youth feinting to the lower left, then rapidly changed the direction to land a blow high instead. Aegil barely had the strength and reflexes to block the powerful blow. The wooden sword however, did not. The loud crack of the wood exploding was followed by a hail of splinters and both fighters instinctively turned away to shield their faces, even though they knew the sparring helmets would protect their eyes.  
Aegil looked down on the piece he held in his glowed hand, the lead core of the waster sticking up from the wooden hilt. "Looks like the drinks are on you the next round."

Szilárd removed his helmet, revealing his usual steel-eyed look. "You sure? Last time you drank my uncle's recipe you couldn't keep a straight line if your life depended on it. You must have hit half the trees in the forest that night."  
"If I remember correctly, you hit the other half and knocked down a few birds nest's as well" Aegil took of his own helmet, revealing his own ice-blue eyes and dark blonde hair. "Besides, what was so bad about it? We found our way back - eventually - and the eggs tasted marvellous!"  
The two youths looked at each other for a moment, before both broke into laughter. "I'll find another waster, can't end a session with a failure."

* * *

The small fire crackled and sent small cascades of sparks towards the black skies as the fat dripped from the roasting rabbit carcass. Szilárd sat hunched beside it, checking the meal were cooking properly without burning it to cinders. Aegil sat on the opposite side, with his back against a tree using his knife to fashion a new waster from a piece of dried wood. "So, what did you think of Dumbledore's speech?"  
On the question, Aegil looked up from his work. "Meaning?"

"Well" Szilárd sat back against a tree and started to break up some twigs for the fire "Would you've done it, given the chance?"  
"You mean participating in a tournament for eternal glory and a thousand galleons?" Aegil looked back down to the half finished wooden sword. "Only if that bastards son entered as Durmstrangs champion." Aegil let out a sigh and looked back up. "But he's not seventeen yet, and unless you didn't notice, neither am I."

"That doesn't need to stop you does it?" Szilárd replied. "I heard the Weasley-twins talking about an aging potion they were going to make."  
Aegil raised an eyebrow. "Do you know the first thing about potion making?"  
"I know you need a kettle, some rather disturbing ingredients and a greasy haired man breathing down your neck."  
"I think the greasy haired man is optional." Aegil smiled. "But what do I know? I can't even cook a rabbit properly. Speaking of which, how's it cooking?"

* * *

The rabbit tasted wonderful. Not a bad word against the house-elves cooking, but there was a special taste to meat you had hunted down yourself and then roasted on an open fire under the stars. "By the way" Szilárd licked his fingers "Hagrid told me he found that arrow you lost last spring."  
Aegil threw the bone he had eaten clean into the fire. "Were there any trouble?"

"No, he said that as long as he doesn't see us, all he has seen is an arrow that could either be from the centaurs or a century old. But he warned us that one day someone could see us."  
"Good man, that one. He always..." Aegil's reply was cut short as a long howl sounded in the starry night. Aegil smiled. "Seems like we're not the only hunters with luck tonight."  
Szilárd smiled as well "That's a rallying cry, Aegil. They haven't set out yet."

They sat listening to the howling as other voices took up the cry, they heard the beauty of the rising and falling notes until it sounded like it were scores of the wolves rather than the dozen or so Hagrid had told them there were.

As the howling stilled, Szilárd brought out a pair of leather bottles. "To the hunters of the woods" Aegil returned the toast and they both took a sip each. Then Aegil coughed up half of it.  
"What have your uncle put in it now?" Aegil looked over at the smirking Hungarian.  
"Just the usual, a bit longer brewing time that's all."  
"Yeah, right. You trickster of a steppe-horses a..." Again Aegil were cut short by a howl. But this time, it wasn't the melodious cry of a gathering pack. It was a high shrill howl, a howl devoid of any warmth or compassion, a howl that every student who had been present in Hogwarts last year had been taught by Snape... And Lupin...

The youths looked at each other, the fear apparent in their eyes. Hastily they got on their feet, quickly scooping up their bows and the arrow quivers and threw a handful of soil on the fire, leaving the rests of their meal and the half-finished wooden sword behind.  
They ran as fast as they could on the snaking path through the dark woods, all the time listening to the howl that seemed to follow them. Changing from a howl devoid of feeling to a cry of malicious glee, as it drew nearer. Then, as they reached the last slope before the castle grounds, they saw it. High on the hilltop, the full moon rising behind the dark creature.

Aegil were the first to react, an arrow was strung and released even before he had time to stop, but in his haste the shot went wide, missing the werewolf with half a yard. Szilárd's arrow weren't slow to follow, only missing its mark as the four legged man-wolf started down the hill at a full run, straight for Aegil.  
Aegil dived to his right, nocking an arrow in mid-air and releasing it just before he landed. It was a trick he had learned from Szilárd, used by the steppe-peoples if their horse were shot away beneath them. The arrow hit the beast's side as it ran past, just behind its lung. However, the short drop to the ground did not give Aegil time to draw the bowstring all the way back, so the arrow only barely had the force to bury itself beneath its skin. Not even close to a killing wound.

As Aegil rolled over to get up, the werewolf turned towards Szilárd who had an arrow ready. He took aim, preparing to deliver the arrow right into the beast's open mouth. He drew the string the last inches past his ear and released, just as the werewolf bolted forward. The arrow hit, but not dead on. Instead of going through the windpipe and on into the vital organs in the torso, it hit just too far to the left and - almost harmlessly - through the skin of its mouth.  
The werewolf yelped in pain and veered off mid-air from its target, knocking the boy over instead of burying its fangs in him. As Szilárd went down his head hit a rock, a white flash going through his head before everything went black.

The wolf started to lope towards the fallen boy. On the other side of the trail, Aegil had once again found his footing, a new arrow readied on the string. This time drawing it full out to his ear, he loosed. A great crack sounded in the night as the bow exploded in his hand. Wooden splinters flying everywhere in a déjà vu of his wooden sword earlier that day. The werewolf sent a gleeful expression towards Aegil, knowing that the boy had lost its sting. It did a motion with its head, as though it was saying "you're next" before it turned its short, bloodied muzzle and went towards Szilárd who lay motionless on the ground.

Aegil stood fixed for a precious moment before his brain took in the situation. Getting his mind back he dropped the last piece of the shattered bow, drawing his wand and knife instead, wincing as his grip on the knife sent a couple of the splinters deeper into his left hand. He took a few quick paces forward, casting an '_incendio'_ towards the werewolf as he did so. The burst of fire that sprung forth from the tip of his wand brushed past the wolf close enough to scorch a patch of its fur. The beast reacted with a yelp of surprised pain as it turned from the place where the fire hit the ground, the flames taking hold in the undergrowth and starting to spread slowly. Its gaze once more turned towards the northerner, its mouth coiling back, showing its teeth dripping with blood from the arrow wound. It leapt forward again, trying to bite Aegil in the neck. Aegil reacted with a dodge downward and attempting to hit the beasts underside with a severing charm. Again his aim were off, instead hitting the rear left leg of the creature. Another yelp of pain was uttered, and then a scream as its front paw landed a retaliatory slash across the boy's face.

Aegil went down, loosing grip of his weapons as he did so. The pain was almost too much to bear, blood trickled down his face into his left eye and mouth. And the werewolf attacked again, hurling itself forward despite its mounting injuries, all instincts of gaining a new pack-member forgotten in its pain and blood-fuelled rage. Through the stream of blood, Aegil's instinct for survival still burned, egging him on to fight back. Deprived of his wand and knife, he took hold of the oncoming werewolf's muzzle with his bare hands holding the snarling mouth at bay. His fingers found the arrow wound Nergüi had inflicted on it and ripped it open once more, getting a howl of pain as his fingernails bit into the soft gums of the beasts mouth behind its teeth. Instinctually remembering the other arrow wound he sent his right knee into the side of the beast, breaking the arrow and sending the head burrowing further in as he did so.

Another howl of pain followed and the beast thrashed wildly, its paws scratching up Aegil's arms and torso, throwing its head from side to side to escape the pain. Lacking the strength to keep his grip, the werewolf finally freed itself from Aegils hands striking out again for the neck. Aegil threw his left arm between himself and the snapping mouth in a final act of instinctual defiance. The pain as the bite of a full grown werewolf clamped down over his archer's bracer was too much for Aegil. Screaming in white-hot agony he lay writhing on the forest floor, unable to escape the vice-like grip. Feeling bone crumble from the force, unable to tell if it were his own or the horn-reinforcements of the bracer. His right arm flailing wildly until somehow, incredulously, his hand gripped round a familiar object. With one brute swing of his arm he plunged the knife into the animal's chest all the way to the hilt. Feeling the werewolf release its grip on his arm he pulled himself away, bloodied and weak from the effort.

He saw the werewolf writhe in agony, now almost unable to stand on its left legs. It turned its hateful gaze towards him once more, intent on killing the boy before itself fell the last time. Aegil knew he did not have the strength to avert another blow. Then, as he resigned himself to his fate he saw another form leap into the small, flame-lightened clearing. Aegil was sure he saw double. Then as more forms entered the clearing, growling, howling and barking against the werewolf he was sure he was delusional. The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him, was the dark werewolf being chased by half a dozen light grey wolves.

* * *

Máire woke up hyperventilating and soaked in sweat. The bed sheets had wrapped around her in her fitful sleep and the nightdress clung to her skin. After moments of panic she slowly managed to calm down. "A dream, just a dream" she told herself. But it had been so lifelike. She had felt the warmth of the fire all around her, the coldness of the earth, the blood trickling down her skin and the pain, the searing pain that shut out all other feelings. Yet she had not really been either of the persons in her dream, it was all a mixture of images. Sometimes she saw what happened from the side, as a silent bystander. Other times she would look down, soaring overhead like an eagle. Then she would slip in and out of the fighters - unable to really see who they were - and once she saw the fight through the eyes of the beast, her long teeth running with warm blood... No, not her teeth, the beast's teeth, she had to keep focus here and now.

Yet she looked down on the sheets of her bed and saw the teeth marks there. Thankfully the marks were clearly hers. No long, sharp fangs to see. Máire lay back, looking up into the sky-blue drapes that seemed to go on forever up into the tall ceiling. She'd had lifelike dreams before, probably the result of an overactive imagination she had thought.

Letting out a sigh she wriggled over to the edge of the bed and pulled away the drapes. The room was dark, but a faint glow of the orange morning light greeted her through the tall windows in the tower. She reached for her clock, 'two thirty a.m.' Way too early to wake up, she lay back then paused. Two thirty a.m? She checked again, no she hadn't seen wrong and it hadn't stopped. But it was October in the middle of Scotland, in a valley no less. Dawn shouldn't come for hours.

Máire looked towards the window on the opposite side of the room. The orange glow flickered a little, almost like a candle-light. Máire threw herself out of the bed, untangling her limbs from the bed sheets as fast as she could. Running across the stone floor to the window where she stopped. Gazing down at the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest she saw the slowly spreading forest fire.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

This story will mostly deal with characthers who's not a part of J.K. Rowlings cannon, but established characters will likely be included in Cameo's.  
There will be some changes to some established facts, such as the political map of Europe, wizarding warfare outside modern Britain and how some specific magical abilities work. However, most of the time the facts will follow the book-facts and Pottermore-lore (the werewolf in this chapter is not as it is in the films for instance, but as described on aforementioned website).

If I'm ever able to finish this (I'm aiming for an Epic) it will follow Aegil's life at Hogwarts, his actions during the second rise of Voldemort and his bid for justice at the point of sword.

As this is my first fan-fic, I'd like to know if my classification of it is correct, especially if Mature is an apropriate rating (will probably include violence, implied - but not detailed - "bed-activity" and some alcohol).

Disclaimer:  
I do not own anything that can be traced to J.K. Rowling.  
Any historical or contemporary characters, no matter how similar they may be to themselves are to be treated as fictional in this work of, well, fiction.


End file.
